Did German tribes cooperate or not (Saxons, Suebi, Franks, etc)? Same with the Celtic tribes? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Rome, Greece, Egypt & other ancient history (c 4000 BCE - 476 CE) and pre-history.
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#14724796
Before the formations of European kingdoms (France, Germany, England, etc) and the tribal times during the Roman Empire, what were the relations between various German tribes in Germania and Gaul, same question for Celtic/gallic tribes in Gaul (Averni, etc). FYI here is a map of the various tribes in Gaul 1st century BC (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ury_BC.gif). Tribes in Germany (http://www.dandebat.dk/images/634p.jpg)

My question is whether in Gaul or Germany/Germania, what do we know of how tribes related to one another?
Did they actually see themselves as one nation and cooperated, or did they raid/conduct war on one another?

The only thing I hear from the Roman conquest of Gaul, is that Vercingetorix for instance had difficulty getting the other tribes (he was Averni) to join up with him (some even joined the Romans). The Germans were similar, many decided to fight for Rome even against their own people.
So this points to a complex situation back then, and not unity at all.

Also, To what extent were Germanic languages understandable to another tribe?
Same with Celtic languages.
#14724798
Of course they raided and waged war on each other and as per language its generally believed that although it was a same language but many different dialects and they could be mutually incomprehensible just like Arabic today as in although we view it as one single language, a kuwati arabian speaker may not understand everything that an egyptian arabian speaker says.
#14724802
Interesting. If that is true then that explains why the Romans usually had a relatively easy time fighting them off, as they were not usually fighting combined forces (and even then, I mean "easy" in a relative way because most of Germany was never conquered, and even Gaul gave Rome a hard time until Caesar conquered it).

On the side of Germany, it is possibly the nation which has taken the longest time to unite (until 1870), and what the Germans called "Kleinstaaterei" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinstaaterei) really makes sense when you understand the disunited past of these people.

It is also interesting that Italy was no different. Rome had to battle and unite all "Italic" tribes inhabiting Italy, before ever thinking of building an Empire.
#14724845
Every society started off as tribal and every first empires had to unite various tribes in a region.

Romans had an easy time because relatively they were a better organized society that reflected in their military with a well functioning government and economy i.e. it was strong inside and hence was outside too.

Germania was never conquered for the same reason as Scotland was never conquered i.e. Rome saw no value in it rather than they couldn't. Just after teutoburg, Rome led many punitive expedition deep inside Germania and won every engagement quite easily, they just thought Rhine was a good natural border.
#14724861
"United" implies they were fragmented.

The bourgeois national state really only comes about in the French Revolution, arguably started in the English Civil War, and not solidified until Lincoln's republic. The fact that we tend to see these bourgeois national states as somehow natural is nothing if not proof of their being a superstructure arising from capitalism's base.

Which is a long way of saying that it's faulty to apply this kind of reasoning to ancient Germans and Celts; these terms themselves (like nationality) being a product of the 19th century.

They were not divided so much as not have a singular identity in the first place. Trying to extract one and measure history against it is a bit like trying to do so with the EU/South Americns as a singular culture and their feeling about lunar colonization. It's a grouping not commonly recognized as a culture that is contextualized by something in retrospect that had not happened to them.
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